The United States said Putin was escalating the war with "dangerous rhetoric", amid signs that the biggest assault on a European state since World War Two was not producing rapid victories, but instead generating a far-reaching and concerted Western response.
Less than four days after it started, the invasion has triggered a Western political, strategic, economic and corporate response unprecedented in its extent and coordination.
"With this war on Ukraine, the world will never be the same again," EU's foreign policy chief Josef Borrell wrote in an opinion piece in the Guardian newspaper.
He said, "It is now, more than ever, the time for societies and alliances to come together to build our future on trust, justice and freedom. It is the moment to stand up and to speak out. Might does not make right. Never did. Never will."
The 27-nation European Union on Sunday decided for the first time in its history to supply weapons to a country at war. A source told Reuters it would send 450 million euros ($507 million) of weaponry to Ukraine. Borrell at a news conference said EU's support would include providing fighter jets.
The European Union's chief executive Ursula von der Leyen expressed support for Ukraine's membership in an interview with Euronews, saying "they are one of us." read more Ukraine, a democratic nation of 44 million people, won independence from Moscow in 1991 at the fall of the Soviet Union and has pushed to join the NATO Western military alliance and the EU, goals Russia vehemently opposes.
Oleh Sinehubov, the head of the Kharkiv regional administration, stated that Ukrainian forces were fighting Russian troops in the city and asked civilians not to leave their homes.
Russian troops approached Kharkiv, which is located about 20 kilometres (12.4 miles) south of the border with Russia, shortly after Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine on Thursday. But until Sunday, they remained on its outskirts without trying to enter the city while other forces rolled past, pressing their offensive deeper into Ukraine.
Videos posted on Ukrainian media and social networks showed Russian vehicles moving across Kharkiv and a light vehicle burning on the street.
Meanwhile, Moscow also claimed today that its troops had “entirely” besieged the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson and the city of Berdyansk in the southeast.
“Over the past 24 hours, the cities of Kherson and Berdyansk have been completely blocked by the Russian armed forces,” defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies.
Russia unleashed a wave of attacks on Ukraine targeting airfields and fuel facilities in what appeared to be the next phase of an invasion that has been slowed by fierce resistance.
The US and EU responded with weapons and ammunition for the outnumbered Ukrainians and powerful sanctions intended to further isolate Moscow.
Huge explosions lit up the sky early Sunday south of the capital, Kyiv, where people hunkered down in homes, underground garages and subway stations in anticipation of a full-scale assault by Russian forces.
Flames billowed into the sky before dawn from an oil depot near an airbase in Vasylkiv, where there has been intense fighting, according to the town’s mayor. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office said another explosion was at the civilian Zhuliany airport.
Zelenskyy’s office also said Russian forces blew up a gas pipeline in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, prompting the government to warn people to protect themselves from the smoke by covering their windows with damp cloth or gauze.
“We will fight for as long as needed to liberate our country,” Zelenskyy vowed.
Terrified men, women and children sought safety inside and underground, and the government maintained a 39-hour curfew to keep people off the streets.
More than 150,000 Ukrainians fled for Poland, Moldova and other neighbouring countries, and the United Nations warned the number could grow to 4 million if fighting escalates.
President Vladimir Putin hasn’t disclosed his ultimate plans, but Western officials claim he is determined to overthrow Ukraine’s government and replace it with a regime of his own, redrawing the map of Europe and reviving Moscow’s Cold War-era influence.
To aid Ukraine’s ability to hold out, the US pledged an additional $350 million in military assistance to Ukraine, including anti-tank weapons, body armour and small arms.
Germany said it would send missiles and anti-tank weapons to the besieged country and that it would close its airspace to Russian planes.
The US, European Union and the United Kingdom agreed to block “selected” Russian banks from the SWIFT global financial messaging system, which moves money around more than 11,000 banks and other financial institutions worldwide, part of a new round of sanctions aiming to impose a severe cost on Moscow for the invasion.
They also agreed to impose ”restrictive measures” on Russia’s central bank.
It was unclear how much territory Russian forces had seized or to what extent their advance had been stalled. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said “the speed of the Russian advance has temporarily slowed likely as a result of acute logistical difficulties and strong Ukrainian resistance.”
A senior US defence official said more than half the Russian combat power that was massed along Ukraine’s borders had entered the country and Moscow has had to commit more fuel supply and other support units inside Ukraine than originally anticipated.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal US assessments.
The curfew forcing everyone in Kyiv inside was set to last through Monday morning. The relative quiet of the capital was sporadically broken by gunfire.
Fighting on the city’s outskirts suggested that small Russian units were trying to clear a path for the main forces. Small groups of Russian troops were reported inside Kyiv, but Britain and the US said the bulk of the forces were 19 miles (30 kilometres) from the city’s centre as of Saturday afternoon.
Russia claims its assault on Ukraine from the north, east and south is aimed only at military targets, but bridges, schools and residential neighbourhoods have been hit.
Ukraine’s health minister reported on Saturday that 198 people, including three children, had been killed and more than 1,000 others wounded during Europe’s largest land war since World War II. It was unclear whether those figures included both military and civilian casualties.
A missile struck a high-rise apartment building in Kyiv’s southwestern outskirts near one of the city’s two passenger airports, leaving a jagged hole of ravaged apartments over several floors. A rescue worker said six civilians were injured.
Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, said troops in Kyiv were fighting Russian “sabotage groups.” Ukraine says some 200 Russian soldiers have been captured and thousands killed.
Markarova said Ukraine was gathering evidence of shelling of residential areas, kindergartens and hospitals to submit to The Hague as possible crimes against humanity.
Zelenskyy reiterated his openness to talks with Russia in a video message, saying he welcomed an offer from Turkey and Azerbaijan to organize diplomatic efforts, which so far have faltered.
The Kremlin confirmed a phone call between Putin and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev but gave no hint of restarting talks.
A day earlier, Zelenskyy offered to negotiate a key Russian demand: abandoning ambitions of joining Nato.
Putin sent troops into Ukraine after denying for weeks that he intended to do so, all the while building up a force of almost 200,000 troops along the countries’ borders.
He claims the West has failed to take seriously Russia’s security concerns about Nato, the Western military alliance that Ukraine aspires to join. But he has also expressed scorn about Ukraine’s right to exist as an independent state.
The effort was already coming at great cost to Ukraine, and apparently to Russian forces as well.
Ukrainian artillery fire destroyed a Russian train delivering diesel to troops heading toward Kyiv from the east, said Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the interior minister.
The country’s Infrastructure Ministry said a Russian missile was shot down early Saturday as it headed for the dam of the sprawling reservoir that serves Kyiv.
The government also said a Russian convoy was destroyed. Video images showed soldiers inspecting burned-out vehicles after Ukraine’s 101st brigade reported destroying a column of two light vehicles, two trucks and a tank. The claim could not be verified.
Highways into Kyiv from the east were dotted with checkpoints manned by Ukrainian troops and young men in civilian clothes carrying automatic rifles. Low-flying planes patrolled the skies, though it was unclear if they were Russian or Ukrainian.
In addition to Kyiv, the Russian assault appeared to focus on Ukraine’s economically vital coastal areas, from near the Black Sea port of Odesa in the west to beyond the Azov Sea port of Mariupol in the east.
Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol guarded bridges and blocked people from the shoreline amid concerns the Russian navy could launch an assault from the sea.
“I don’t care anymore who wins and who doesn’t,” said Ruzanna Zubenko, whose large family was forced from their home outside Mariupol after it was badly damaged by shelling.
“The only important thing is for our children to be able to grow up smiling and not crying.”
Fighting also raged in two eastern territories controlled by pro-Russia separatists. Authorities in Donetsk said hot water supplies to the city of about 900,000 were suspended because of damage to the system by Ukrainian shelling.
The US government urged Zelenskyy early Saturday to evacuate Kyiv but he turned down the offer, according to a senior American intelligence official with direct knowledge of the conversation. Zelenskyy issued a defiant video recorded on a downtown street, saying he remained in the city.
“We aren’t going to lay down weapons. We will protect the country,” he said. “Our weapon is our truth, and our truth is that it’s our land, our country, our children. And we will defend all of that.”
Hungary and Poland both opened their borders to Ukrainians.
Refugees arriving in the Hungarian border town of Zahony said men between the ages of 18 and 60 were not being allowed to leave Ukraine.
“My son was not allowed to come. My heart is so sore, I’m shaking,” said Vilma Sugar, 68.
At Poland’s Medyka crossing, some said they had walked for 15 miles (35km) to reach the border.
“They didn’t have food, no tea, they were standing in the middle of a field, on the road, kids were freezing,” Iryna Wiklenko said as she waited on the Polish side for her grandchildren and daughter-in-law to make it across.
Officials in Kyiv urged residents to stay away from windows to avoid debris or bullets.
Shelves were sparsely stocked at grocery stores and pharmacies, and people worried how long food and medicine supplies might last.
The US and its allies have beefed up forces on Nato's eastern flank but so far have ruled out deploying troops to fight Russia. Instead, the US, the European Union and other countries have slapped wide-ranging sanctions on Russia, freezing the assets of businesses and individuals including Putin and his foreign minister.
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, warned that Moscow could react by opting out of the last remaining nuclear arms pact, freezing Western assets and cutting diplomatic ties.
“There is no particular need in maintaining diplomatic relations,” Medvedev said. “We may look at each other in binoculars and gunsights.”
Russia's goal is to free Ukraine of "external management" carried out by the US and "Nazis," Lavrov told a news conference in Moscow, echoing President Vladimir Putin’s earlier statement saying the attack aimed at the “denazification” of Ukraine.
"We’re ready for negotiations at any moment as soon as the armed forces of Ukraine respond to our proposal, stop resisting, lay down their weapons, — nobody is going to abuse them, nobody is going to oppress them – let's return to our families and allow the Ukrainian people to decide their fate themselves," he said.
Explaining Russia's motives, Lavrov said Moscow had tried for eight years to address the Ukrainian crisis peacefully, through promoting implementation of the 2014 Minsk agreement while, in his words, Kyiv "sabotaged the process with the support of the West".
Lavrov said nobody even verbally called on Kyiv to fulfil the Minsk agreement but instead put pressure on Russia, and "motivated the Ukrainian government to persecute everything Russian in Ukraine".
"If the English language was prohibited in Ireland or the French language in Belgium, what would be the reaction?" he asked, accusing the West of double standards over what Moscow has called Ukraine’s persecution of local ethnic Russians.
"The Ukrainian people must be independent, must have a government representing all its diversity, free of external management, and in addition free of such a management that encourages genocide, and uses Ukraine as a tool to contain Russia," he stressed.
Asked if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had sought talks and security guarantees, Lavrov said Zelenskyy only requested meetings in the Normandy Four format and security guarantees from NATO.
"The chance to negotiate was on the table until the last, (and) Russia will return to the negotiations after the military operation," he said.
Lavrov said Russia does not recognise Zelenskyy's government as Ukraine's legitimate authority.
In Moscow’s eyes, he said, it is "a regime under two external mechanisms of control, the US and Nazis".
Lavrov argued that "nobody is going to occupy Ukraine," insisting that Russia's goal is "to demilitarise" and free the country of the "Nazi ideology that flourished in Ukraine in recent years."
"Nobody is going to attack the Ukrainian people or treat in a humiliating way the Ukrainian military ... No strikes are being carried out on civil infrastructure or personnel of the armed forces of Ukraine," he claimed.
Donbas crisis and Russia’s military intervention
The February 2014 “Maidan revolution” in Ukraine led to former President Viktor Yanukovych fleeing the country and a pro-Western government coming to power.
This was followed by Russia illegally annexing the Crimea region and separatists declaring independence in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Donbas in eastern Ukraine, both of which have large ethnic Russian populations.
As clashes erupted between Russian-backed separatist forces and the Ukrainian army, the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements were signed in Moscow after the intervention of Western powers.
The conflict, however, simmered for years with persistent cease-fire violations. As of February 2022, some 14,000 people have been killed in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Tensions started escalating late last year when Ukraine, the US and its allies accused Russia of amassing tens of thousands of troops on the border with Ukraine.
They claimed Russia was preparing to invade its western neighbour, claims consistently rejected by Moscow.
Defying threats of sanctions by the West, Moscow earlier this week officially recognised Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states, followed by the start of a military operation in Ukraine on Thursday.
Putin said the operation aims to protect people “subjected to genocide” by Kyiv and to “demilitarise and denazify” Ukraine, while calling on the Ukrainian army to lay down its arms.
The new sanctions meant to punish Russia for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, were unveiled in a televised address by US President Joe Biden.
Reiterating that US troops would not engage directly in Ukraine, Joe Biden announced a new deployment of forces to NATO's eastern flank.
"Airborne assault troops of the Ukrainian armed forces are fighting in the areas of the settlements of Dymer and Invankiv," Kyiv’s army said on its Facebook page. Dymer is around 45 kilometres (28 miles) north of Kyiv, while Ivankiv is about 60 kilometres northwest of the Ukrainian capital.
The military said it had stopped advancing Russian forces at the Teteriv River, a tributary of the Dnieper River that flows through Kyiv, adding that a bridge over it was destroyed.
The army also said it had retaken the Gostomel airfield, with reports that it had been captured by Russian forces the day before.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that Moscow’s forces were also targeting civilian areas and praised his countrymen for their "heroism".
"They say that civilian objects are not a target for them. But this is another lie of theirs. In reality, they do not distinguish between areas in which they operate," Zelensky said in a video.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the start of a military operation against Ukraine in the early hours of Thursday, confirming widespread fears Moscow was planning to invade its western neighbour.
Shortly after Putin spoke, a Reuters witness heard the sound of what appeared to be explosions in the distance from the capital, Kyiv.
Explosions also rocked the breakaway eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk and civilian aircraft were warned away as the United States said a major attack by Russia on its neighbour was imminent.
In comments reported by Russian media, Putin said he had authorised a special military operation in breakaway areas of eastern Ukraine and clashes between Russian and Ukrainian forces were only a matter of time.
Hours after pro-Russian separatists issued a plea to Moscow for help to stop alleged Ukrainian aggression - claims the United States dismissed as Russian propaganda - Putin said he had ordered Russian forces to protect the people and demanded Ukrainian forces lay down their arms.
He repeated his position that NATO expansion to include Ukraine was unacceptable.
At the U.N. Security Council, the United States said shortly before Putin's announcement that an invasion was imminent.
"We are here tonight because we believe, along with Ukraine, that a full-scale, further invasion into Ukraine by Russia is imminent," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told an emergency meeting.
"Tonight we’re seeing the Russians close airspace, move troops into Donbas, and move forces into combat-ready positions. This is a perilous moment."
Ukraine restricted civilian flights in its airspace due to "potential hazard", hours after a conflict zone monitor warned airlines should stop overflights over the risk of an unintended shootdown or cyber attack.
An El Al flight from Tel Aviv to Toronto and a LOT Polish Airlines flight from Warsaw to Kyiv turned out of Ukraine's airspace around the time a notice was issued, according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24.
Russia also partially closed its airspace in the Rostov flight information region to the east of its border with Ukraine "in order to provide safety" for civil aviation flights, according to its notice to airmen.
Convoys of military equipment including nine tanks were seen moving towards Donetsk earlier on Wednesday from the direction of the Russian border, a Reuters witness reported.
Shelling has intensified since Russian President Vladimir Putin this week recognised two separatist regions as independent and ordered the deployment of what he called peacekeepers, a move the West calls the start of an invasion.
The U.N. Security Council met to discuss the stand-off on Wednesday night, in the 15-member body's second late night meeting on the crisis this week.
A draft resolution calling out Moscow over its actions toward its neighbour is doomed to fail due to Russia veto power, however a Security Council diplomat said it would put Russia on notice that it is "not in compliance with international law."
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spoke separately with her counterparts from Britain and Canada, while G7 leaders are also due to talk on Thursday.
Moscow has long denied that it has plans to invade despite massing tens of thousands of troops near its neighbour.
In the comments reported by Russian media, Putin said
A total of 80% of the Russian soldiers assembled are in a position to launch a full-scale invasion on Ukraine, a senior U.S. defence official said.
Satellite imagery taken on Wednesday showed new deployments in western Russia, many of them within 10 miles (16 km) of the border with Ukraine and less than 50 miles from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, U.S. satellite company Maxar said.
The images showed field deployment, military convoys, artillery and armoured personnel carriers with support equipment and troops. The images could not be independently verified by Reuters.
A 30-day state of emergency in Ukraine restricting the freedom of movement of conscripted reservists, curbing the media and imposing personal document checks, according to a draft text, begins on Thursday.
The Ukrainian government has also announced compulsory military service for all men of fighting age.
While the West has held off the most stringent sanctions measures it could impose, the United States stepped up the pressure by imposing penalties on the firm building the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and its corporate officers.
Germany on Tuesday froze approvals for the pipeline, which has been built but was not yet in operation, amid concerns it could allow Moscow to weaponize energy supplies to Europe.
While both sides have said they are still open to diplomacy to resolve the crisis, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier Moscow had approved an offensive and not replied to an invitation for talks.
"Today I initiated a telephone conversation with the President of the Russian Federation. The result was silence," he said.
Ukrainian government websites, which have experienced outages in recent weeks blamed by Kyiv on cyber attacks, were again offline on Wednesday. Ukraine's parliament, cabinet and foreign ministry websites were affected.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a last-minute plea on Wednesday to Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the war 'in the name of humanity', after the Russian leader announced a military operation in eastern Ukraine.
"President Putin, in the name of humanity, bring your troops back to Russia," Guterres said, speaking after an emergency meeting of the Security Council on Ukraine.
The consequences of a war would be devastating for Ukraine and far-reaching for the global economy, he added.
Price said this during a press briefing on Wednesday when asked about the Pakistani premier's scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
He said that they have already apprised Islamabad of Washington's position on Russia’s further escalation in Ukraine and "we have briefed them on our efforts to pursue diplomacy over war."
Price said that the US views the partnership with a prosperous, democratic Pakistan as critical to its interests.
"We certainly hope, when it comes to those shared interests – the aversion of a costly conflict, the aversion of a destabilizing conflict, that every country around the world would make that point clearly in unambiguous language in their engagements with the Russian Federation," he added.
The visit of PM Imran has assumed international significance as Russia announced to launch operation in Ukraine's Donbas region. He would be the only world leader to meet Putin face-to-face amid the unfolding crisis in Ukraine.
Russian missiles rained down on Ukrainian cities. Ukraine reported columns of troops pouring across its borders into the eastern Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Luhansk regions, and landing by sea at the cities of Odessa and Mariupol in the south.
Explosions could be heard before dawn in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Gunfire rattled out near the main airport and sirens blared across the city.
A resident of Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv, the closest big city to the Russian border, said windows in apartment blocks were shaking from constant blasts. The city was gripped by panic as people tried to flee, said the resident, who asked not to be identified.
Ukraine's President Volodymur Zelenskiy said Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin's aim was to destroy his state.
"Putin has just launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Peaceful Ukrainian cities are under strikes," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter.
"This is a war of aggression. Ukraine will defend itself and will win. The world can and must stop Putin. The time to act is now."
At least eight people had been killed and nine were wounded by the Russian shelling, an advisor to the Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs said.
Putin declared in a televised address that he had ordered "a special military operation" to protect people, including Russian citizens who had been subjected to "genocide" in Ukraine, an accusation the West has long described as absurd propaganda.
"And for this we will strive for the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine," Putin said. "Russia cannot feel safe, develop, and exist with a constant threat emanating from the territory of modern Ukraine...All responsibility for bloodshed will be on the conscience of the ruling regime in Ukraine."
Putin, who denied for months that he was planning an invasion, has called Ukraine an artificial creation carved from Russia by enemies, a characterisation Ukrainians call shocking and false.
US President Joe Biden said his prayers were with the people of Ukraine "as they suffer an unprovoked and unjustified attack" while promising tough sanctions in response.
He would be meeting with G7 leaders, he said.
EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell also promised the toughest financial sanctions the bloc had ever imposed.
"These are among the darkest hours of Europe since the Second World War," Borrell said.
The full scope of the Russian military operation was not immediately clear but Putin said: "Our plans do not include the occupation of Ukrainian territories. We are not going to impose anything by force."
Speaking as the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting in New York, Putin said he had ordered Russian forces to protect the people and appealed to the Ukrainian military to lay down their arms.
Zelenskiy appealed to world leaders to impose all possible sanctions on Russia, including on Putin.
Three hours after Putin gave his order, Russia's defence ministry said it had taken out military infrastructure at Ukrainian airbases and degraded its air defences, Russian media reported.
Earlier, Ukrainian media reported that military command centres in Kyiv and the city of Kharkiv in the northeast had been struck by missiles, while Russian troops had landed in the southern port cities of Odessa and Mariupol.
A Reuters witness later heard three loud blasts in Mariupol. Russian-backed separatists in the east later said they had captured two towns, the RIA news agency reported. There was no immediate comment by authorities in Ukraine.
Russia announced it was shutting all shipping in the Azov Sea. Russia controls the strait leading into the sea where Ukraine has ports including Mariupol.
Hours before the invasion began, the separatists issued a plea to Moscow for help to stop alleged Ukrainian aggression - claims the United States dismissed as Russian propaganda.
Global stocks and US bond yields dived, while the dollar and gold rocketed higher after Putin's address. Brent oil surged past $100/barrel for the first time since 2014.
Queues of people waited to withdraw money and buy supplies of food and water in Kyiv. Traffic was jammed going west out of the city towards the Polish border. Western countries have been preparing for the likelihood of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing an assault.
Biden, who has ruled out putting U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine, said Putin had chosen a premeditated war that would bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering.
"Russia alone is responsible for the death and destruction this attack will bring, and the United States and its Allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive way," said Biden, who spoke to Zelenskiy by telephone.
French President Emmanuel Macron condemned Russia's action while NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said NATO allies would meet to tackle the consequences of Russia's "reckless and unprovoked attack".
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, speaking after the Security Council meeting, made a last-minute plea to Putin to stop the war "in the name of humanity".
China, which signed a friendship treaty with Russia three weeks ago, reiterated a call for all parties to exercise restraint and rejected a description of Russia's action as an invasion.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Putin had chosen "the path of bloodshed and destruction".
Ukraine closed its airspace to civilian flights citing a high risk to safety, while Europe's aviation regulator warned against the hazards to flying in bordering areas of Russia and Belarus.
AFP correspondents also heard blasts in the Black Sea port city of Odessa, close to the frontline of a Russian-backed rebel enclave and just across the sea from Russian-occupied Crimea.
Explosions also rang out in Kharkiv, Ukraine s second-largest city, which lies 35 kilometres (20 miles) south of the Russian border and outside the eastern zone where Kyiv has been battling Moscow-backed insurgents since 2014.
Ukraine closed its airspace to civilian planes, and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted that his country was facing a "full-scale invasion".
Closer to the eastern war zone, four loud blasts rang out in Kramatorsk, which serves as the Ukrainian government s effective capital for the eastern war zone.
More blasts also rang out in Mariupol, a port on the Sea of Azov which provide a land bridge between Russia and the Kremlin-annexed Crimea peninsula.
"Russia s offensive military operation is to destroy the Ukrainian state," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
"Our defenders are ready to repel the aggressor state and will do everything in their power to defend Ukrainian land," it added, calling on Ukraine s Western allies to "immediately" impose new sanctions on Russia.
Donald Trump has been banned from all major social media accounts for encouraging violence on Capitol Hill, India Today reported.
Shortly after its formal announcement, the Truth social app was made accessible on the Apple app store. On Monday, the app was the most popular free app on social media, the publication reported.
Users who pre-ordered the app before it was released were automatically given access to it. The app, on the other hand, had a bumpy trip. Users were unable to register their accounts due to technical difficulties. Many users were placed on a wait list with the following message: "We've added you to our waitlist due to high demand."
After making incendiary statements on social media during the US 2020 elections, Trump was banned from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media platforms, sparking rioting on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021. Truth Social's CEO, Devin Nunes, a former Republican Party member, informed Fox News that the app would be available to a wider audience on the Apple app store. At the very least, it will be completely operational by the end of March in the United States.
"We'll start rolling out on the Apple App Store this week. That'll be fantastic since it'll mean a huge increase in the number of individuals using the platform. I believe we will achieve our objective. At least within the United States, we'll be completely operating by the end of March," Nunes predicted.
Truth is a social media app akin to Twitter. On the social media network, users will be able to follow celebrities as well as regular people. Users will now be able to send personal notes to the people they follow through the app.
They can also retweet and comment on other people's tweets. The app also includes a dark theme and the ability to create hashtags. The Truth social can easily be described as a Twitter clone.
In an often angry 65-minute televised national address, Putin railed against Russia’s ex-Soviet neighbour Ukraine as a failed state and “puppet” of the West, repeatedly suggesting that it is essentially part of Russia.
He accused authorities in Kyiv of persecuting Russian speakers and of preparing a “blitzkrieg” against the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in Ukraine’s east.
“As for those who seized and hold power in Kyiv, we demand an immediate end to their military operations,” Putin said.
“Otherwise, all responsibility for the possible continuation of bloodshed will be fully on the conscience of the regime in power in Ukraine.” Putin said it was necessary to “take a long overdue decision, to immediately recognise the independence” of the two regions.
Immediately after the speech, state television showed him signing mutual aid agreements with rebel leaders in the Kremlin.
The recognition effectively puts an end to an already shaky peace plan in the separatist conflict, which has rumbled on since 2014, after Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine, and has left more than 14,000 dead.
EU ‘will react with sanctions’
Russia could now move in troops at the request of separatist officials, or to protect hundreds of thousands of residents who have been granted Russian passports, justifying an intervention as a defence of its citizens.
Ukraine would then either have to accept the loss of a huge chunk of territory, or face an armed conflict against its vastly more powerful neighbour.
The move drew immediate condemnation from the West, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling it “a flagrant violation of the sovereignty and integrity of the Ukraine”.
EU chiefs Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel promised the bloc “will react with sanctions against those involved in this illegal act.” Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg also condemned Putin’s move, saying it violates international agreements signed by Moscow.
The app was available to download shortly before midnight ET and was automatically downloaded to Apple Inc devices belonging to users who had pre-ordered the app.
Some users reported either having trouble registering for an account or were added to a waitlist with a message: “Due to massive demand, we have placed you on our waitlist.”
The app has been available for people invited to use it during its test phase, Reuters previously reported.
Trump was banned from Twitter Inc, Facebook and Alphabet Inc's YouTube following the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by his supporters, after he was accused of posting messages inciting violence.
Led by former Republican US Representative Devin Nunes, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), the venture behind Truth Social, joins a growing portfolio of technology companies that are positioning themselves as champions of free speech and hope to draw users who feel their views are suppressed on more established platforms.
So far none of the newer companies, which include Twitter competitors Gettr and Parler and video site Rumble, have come close to matching the popularity of their mainstream counterparts.
“This week we will begin to roll out on the Apple App Store. That's going to be awesome, because we're going to get so many more people that are going to be on the platform,” Nunes said in a Sunday appearance on Fox News' “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo”.
“Our goal is, I think we're going to hit it, I think by the end of March we're going to be fully operational at least within the United States,” he added.
Truth Social's app store page detailing its version history showed the first public version of the app, or version 1.0 was available a day ago, confirming a Reuters report. The current version 1.0.1 includes “bug fixes”, according to the page.
On Friday, Nunes was on the app urging users to follow more accounts, share photos and videos and participate in conversations, in an apparent attempt to drum up activity, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
Among Nunes' posts, he welcomed a new user who appeared to be a Catholic priest and encouraged him to invite more priests to join, according to the person with knowledge of the matter.
Even as details of the app begin trickling out, TMTG remains mostly shrouded in secrecy and is regarded with scepticism by some in tech and media circles. It is unclear, for example, how the company is funding its current growth.
TMTG is planning to list in New York through a merger with blank-check firm Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC) and stands to receive $293 million in cash that DWAC holds in a trust, assuming no DWAC shareholder redeems their shares, TMTG said in an Oct 21 press release.
Additionally, in December TMTG raised $1 billion committed financing from private investors; that money also will not be available until the DWAC deal closes.
Digital World's activities have come under scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the US Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, according to a regulatory filing, and the deal is likely months away from closing.
A summit might offer a possible path out of Europe's biggest military crisis in decades, and financial markets edged higher on the glimmer of hope for a diplomatic solution.
However, both Washington and Moscow played down hopes of a breakthrough, and satellite imagery appeared to show Russian deployments closer to Ukraine's border than before.
Western countries accuse Russia of planning an invasion of its neighbour. Moscow denies planning any attack but has demanded security guarantees including a promise that Ukraine would never join NATO.
Nerves were further frayed when the Belarusian defence ministry announced on Sunday that Russia would extend military drills in Belarus that had been due to end. Russia has tens of thousands of troops there, north of the Ukrainian border.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that a phone call or meeting between Putin and Biden could be set up at any time, but there were no concrete plans yet for a summit. Tensions were growing, but diplomatic contacts were active and a meeting of foreign ministers was possible this week.
He also said Putin would imminently address an extraordinary session of Russia's Security Council.
The White House said in a statement that Biden had accepted the meeting "in principle" but only "if an invasion hasn't happened".
"We are always ready for diplomacy," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said. "We are also ready to impose swift and severe consequences, should Russia instead choose war."
Western countries are preparing sanctions they say would be far-reaching against Russian companies and individuals in the event that Russia invades, including steps to bar US financial institutions from processing transactions for major Russian banks, people familiar with the matter said.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, arriving in Brussels to meet his European Union counterparts, urged the bloc to start imposing some sanctions on Russia now to show it was serious about wanting to prevent a war.
The West has so far rebuffed Kyiv's calls to impose tighter sanctions now, arguing that to work as a deterrent they must be saved as a potential punishment if Russia invades.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he still saw room for diplomacy, but would convene an extraordinary EU meeting to agree sanctions "when the moment comes".
US stock index futures rallied on prospects for further diplomacy, the euro rose and stocks steadied around the world.
French President Emmanuel Macron's office said in a statement that he had pitched a summit on "security and strategic stability in Europe" to both leaders.
Summit plans unclear
Macron's office and the White House said the substance of the plan would be worked out by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a meeting planned for Feb. 24.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Twitter that he would hold talks with Lavrov later on Monday.
Ukraine welcomed a possible summit between but said it must be included in any decisions aimed at resolving the crisis.
"No one can resolve our issue without us," Ukraine's top security official Oleksiy Danilov told a briefing. "Everything should happen with our participation."
Macron's announcement followed a volley of phone calls between Macron, Biden, Putin, Zelenskiy and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
US-based satellite imagery company Maxar on Sunday reported multiple new deployments of Russian military units in forests, farms, and industrial areas as little as 15 km (9 miles) from the border with Ukraine.
Blinken said the extension of the exercises in Belarus made him more worried that Russia was on the brink of an attack.
In a letter to UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet seen by Reuters, the United States said an invasion "could create a human rights catastrophe" and might include rounding up and killing opponents.
Washington has also repeatedly raised concerns that Russia could manufacture a pretext for an invasion with a so-called false flag attack designed to look as if it had been carried out by Ukraine. Russia accuses the West of hysteria.
Sporadic shelling across the line dividing Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists in the east has intensified since Thursday, with both sides trading blame.
The separatists have been busing out civilians, accusing Kyiv of planning an attack. Ukraine and the West view the rebels as Russian proxies, escalating to provide Moscow with a justification to invade.
Sounds of fighting were heard again on Monday, including a blast in the centre of the separatist-held city of Donetsk. The cause could not be determined.
Russia's FSB intelligence service said a shell fired from Ukrainian territory had hit a Russian border guard post in the city of Rostov, but that no one had been hurt.
The rebels said two civilians were killed in shelling by Kyiv government forces, Russia's RIA news agency said. Russian media reported 61,000 evacuees from east Ukraine had crossed into Russia.
Kyiv denies firing on civilians or across the border into Russia. Washington says accusations that Kyiv would intentionally escalate the conflict are absurd at a time when Russia has massed troops on the border.
The data reveals that 1,400 Pakistani citizens are linked to approximately 600 Credit Suisse accounts. It also included information about accounts that were closed but were still operational in the past.
Details relating to around 18,000 accounts and 30,000 account holders holding in excess of $100 billion in one of the world's largest private banks, Credit Suisse, are included in the breach. This is not all of the data available about the bank, which has 1.5 million private banking clients. Suisse Secrets is the only recorded leak of client data from a major Swiss bank to the media.
According to the report, the accounts of Pakistanis are diverse in nature. Additionally, they include individuals who have been or are currently under investigation by the National Accountability Bureau. Additionally, there are instances where the accused opened accounts while the investigation was ongoing and NAB was unaware of the transaction.
Numerous politically exposed individuals opened their accounts while holding public office and failed to disclose this fact in their asset declarations submitted to the Election Commission of Pakistan. One such individual received a substantial sum of money from Credit Suisse, at the height of his political career.
One of the wealthiest accounts held by a Pakistani at the bank was also owned by a politically exposed individual.
Additionally, the data contained details about several cases currently under investigation in Pakistan in which investigators were given incorrect information about the assets under scrutiny. While many believe that the phenomenon of fake accounts is limited to Pakistani banks, it has emerged that Pakistanis have also used Credit Suisse to open accounts in their proxies' names in the absence of the bank conducting proper due diligence.
The average maximum balance in Pakistanis' accounts was 4.42 million Swiss francs (Rs841 million), compared to the leaked data's overall average of 7.5 million Swiss francs (Rs1.42 billion). Almost two hundred clients worth more than 100 million Swiss francs (Rs19 billion) were discovered in the data, and more than a dozen had accounts worth billions.
A whistle blower shared this data with German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, which coordinated the project along with the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, the world’s biggest investigative journalism organisation with its presence in all continents. In a statement, the whistleblower declared the secrecy laws of Swiss banking as immoral.
He said: “The pretext of protecting financial privacy is merely a fig leaf of covering the shameful role of Swiss banks as collaborators of tax evaders.” Credit Suisse responding to questions sent by journalists rejected the allegations and said the details uncovered by reporters are based on “selective information taken out of context, resulting in tendentious interpretations of the bank’s business conduct.” More than 160 journalists from 48 media outlets in 39 countries across the world spent months analysing bank account information leaked from Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-largest lender.
While some accounts in the data dated back to the 1940s, more than two-thirds were opened from 2000 onward. Many of them were still open well into the last decade. News Desk adds: The client rosters of Swiss banks are among the world’s most closely guarded secrets, protecting the identities of some of the planet’s richest people and clues into how they accumulated their fortunes, the New York Times reported.
The data covers accounts that were open from the 1940s until well into the 2010s but do not cover the bank’s current operations. Among the people listed as holding amounts worth millions of dollars in Credit Suisse accounts were King Abdullah II of Jordan and the two sons of the former Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak.
Swiss banks have long faced legal prohibitions on taking money linked to criminal activity, said Daniel Thelesklaf, the former head of Switzerland’s anti-money laundering agency. But, he said, the law generally hasn’t been enforced.
The leak follows the so-called Panama Papers in 2016, the Paradise Papers in 2017 and the Pandora Papers last year. The new disclosures are likely to intensify legal and political scrutiny of the Swiss banking industry and, in particular, Credit Suisse. The bank is already reeling from the abrupt ousters of its two top executives.
With its ironclad bank-secrecy laws, Switzerland has long been a haven for people who are looking to hide money. In the past decade, that has made the country’s largest banks — especially its two giants, Credit Suisse and UBS — a target for the authorities in the United States and elsewhere who are trying to crack down on tax evasion, money laundering and other crimes.
In 2014, Credit Suisse pleaded guilty to conspiring to help Americans file false tax returns and agreed to pay fines, penalties and restitution totaling $2.6 billion. The bank also kept accounts open for a Zimbabwean businessman who was sanctioned by US and European authorities for his ties to the government of the country’s longtime president, Robert Mugabe. The accounts stayed open for several months after the sanctions were imposed.
The leaked bank information included many accounts linked to government officials across the Middle East and beyond. The data raises questions about how public officials and their relatives accumulated vast fortunes in a region rife with corruption.
Senior officials and their offspring from several countries that cooperated with the United States in the war on terrorism also had money stashed at Credit Suisse.
In video footage released of the 95-year-old monarch receiving two senior Royal Navy officers at her Windsor Castle residence, she could be heard remarking “as you can see, I can’t move” as she stood while holding a walking stick.
Meeting the officers in the Oak Room sitting room at the castle, west of London, she had pointed to her left leg or foot as the area giving her discomfort.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment, but it is understood she was feeling slightly stiff rather than having injured herself or being unwell.
In a separate development, anxiety had grown about the queen’s possible exposure to Covid-19 after Prince Charles, her eldest son, tested positive for the virus for the second time, two days after meeting her.
His wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, also then tested positive, and the couple have been self-isolating since, according to aides.
“While no one was hurt, interactions such as these could result in miscalculations and mistakes that lead to more dangerous outcomes,” US Navy Captain Mike Kafka said in a statement.
The three P-8A maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft “experienced unprofessional intercepts by Russian aircraft” while “flying in international airspace over the Mediterranean Sea,” Kafka said.
He said the United States has “made our concerns known to Russian officials through diplomatic channels.
“The US will continue to operate safely, professionally and consistent with international law in international waters and airspace,” Kafka said. “We expect Russia to do the same.”
According to a US official who asked to remain anonymous, one of the Russian planes came dangerously close to a US aircraft.
The incidents come amid heightened tensions over Russia’s huge build-up of military forces along the border with Ukraine.
Russia’s deployment of troops, missiles and warships around Ukraine has being described as Europe’s worst security crisis since the Cold War.
“We have now recovered seven deceased individuals and three survivors,” Brian Owens of Canada’s Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) told AFP.
There were 24 crew members on board the vessel when it went down some 250 nautical miles east of Newfoundland, with rescuers still searching for the remaining 14 crew despite difficult weather conditions, he said.
Spain’s transport ministry identified the crew members as 16 Spanish nationals, five Peruvians and three Ghanaians.
“Seven people have been found dead, three sailors were found alive in a life raft, we believe they are recovering, and the rest – up to 24 – have not been found,” Alberto Nunez Feijoo, head of Spain’s northwestern Galicia region, told RTVE public television.
The Villa de Pitanxo, a 50-metre (165-foot) fishing vessel which is based at a port in Galicia, sent out two distress calls which were received at 5:24 am (0424 GMT) in Madrid, the ministry said.
Five hours later, another Spanish fishing vessel that was in the area spotted two life rafts, one of which was carrying three survivors and several bodies, it said.
Rescuers later found another four bodies.
“In one, there were just three survivors who were in a state of hypothermic shock because the temperature of the water is horrible, very low,” Maica Larriba, a representative of Spain’s central government in the Galicia region, told public radio.
She said the survivors had been airlifted to safety by a Canadian coastguard helicopter and that rescuers had found two other life rafts that were “totally empty” while searching for a third.
Canadian rescuers said they were hopeful more survivors could be found.
“The fact that we have already found three survivors in a life raft gives us that hope that others were able to either get into their survival suits, get into life rafts and get off the vessel,” Owens of the JRCC told AFP.
Canadian rescuers had deployed a helicopter, a military plane, a coastguard ship and several boats to search for the missing crew members, he said.
“The weather right now is challenging for the search. It’s approximately four-metre (13 foot) waves and visibility is down to approximately one quarter nautical mile,” he said.
It was not immediately clear what caused the boat to founder.
“We certainly could be talking about one of the saddest days for Galician fishing in its entire history,” Javier Touza, head of the Shipowner’s Cooperative in the northwestern Spanish city of Vigo told public radio.
The Villa de Pitanxo is a freezer trawler registered in 2004 that is based in Marin, a small port near Pontevedra, and belongs to shipowner Manuel Nores.
Founded in 1950, the firm has eight freezer trawlers and some 300 employees with vessels operating off the Canadian coast, in the South Atlantic and off the western coast of Africa, according to its website.
“We are following with concern the search and rescue operation for the crew of the Galician ship that sunk in the waters of Newfoundland,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez tweeted.
“All my love to their families. The government remains in constant contact with rescue services,” he added.
Labour Minister Yolanda Diaz, who is from Galicia, said she was “shocked” by the news of the accident.
“Bad news is reaching us from the other side of the Atlantic,” she tweeted.
“All my love and support to the families of the crew in their pain at this time of uncertainty.”
The report said pollution from pesticides, plastics and electronic waste is causing widespread human rights violations and at least 9 million premature deaths a year, and that the issue is largely being overlooked.
The coronavirus pandemic has caused close to 5.9 million deaths, according to data aggregator Worldometer.
“Current approaches to managing the risks posed by pollution and toxic substances are clearly failing, resulting in widespread violations of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment,” the report’s author, UN Special Rapporteur David Boyd, concluded.
“I think we have an ethical and now a legal obligation to do better by these people,” he said later in an interview.
Due to be presented next month to the UN Human Rights Council, which has declared a clean environment a human right, the document was posted on the Council’s website on Tuesday.
It urges a ban on polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl, man-made substances used in household products such as non-stick cookware that have been linked to cancer and dubbed “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down easily.
It also seeks the clean-up of polluted sites and, in extreme cases, the possible relocations of affected communities — many of them poor, marginalised and indigenous — from so-called “sacrifice zones”.
That term, originally used to describe nuclear test zones, was expanded in the report to include any heavily contaminated site or place rendered uninhabitable by climate change.
“What I hope to do by telling these stories of sacrifice zones is to really put a human face on these otherwise inexplicable, incomprehensible statistics (of pollution death tolls),” Boyd said. Boyd considers the report, his latest in a series, to be his most hard-hitting yet and told Reuters he expects “push back” when he presents it to the Council in Geneva.
UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet has called environmental threats the biggest global rights challenge, and a growing number of climate and environmental justice cases are invoking human rights with success.
Chemical waste is set to be part of negotiations at a UN environment conference in Nairobi, Kenya, starting on Feb 28, including a proposal to establish a devoted panel, similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The move came amid an intense diplomatic effort to avert a feared Russian invasion of its pro-Western neighbour and after Moscow amassed more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders.
Following the announcement, Ukraine said that its joint diplomatic efforts with Western allies have managed to avert a feared Russian invasion.
"We and our allies have managed to prevent Russia from any further escalation. It is already the middle of February, and you see that diplomacy is continuing to work," Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told reporters.
The crisis — the worst between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War — reached a peak this week with US officials warning that a full-scale invasion, including an assault on the capital Kyiv, was possible within days.
In the morning on Tuesday, the Russian defence ministry’s spokesman said that some forces deployed near Ukraine had completed their exercises and were packing up to leave.
“Units of the Southern and Western military districts, having completed their tasks, have already begun loading onto rail and road transport and today they will begin moving to their military garrisons,” the ministry’s chief spokesman, Igor Konashenkov, told Russian news agencies.
It was not immediately clear how many units were involved and what impact the withdrawals would have on the overall number of troops surrounding Ukraine, but it was the first announcement of a Russian drawdown in weeks.
Talks with Germany
If Western officials confirm that Moscow is taking steps to reduce its forces, it would ease fears of a major war in Europe that have been rising for weeks.
The first reaction could come from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was due in Moscow on Tuesday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Support from Germany, a major economic partner for Moscow and importer of Russian gas, is crucial for the package of crippling sanctions that Western leaders say would be imposed in response to an invasion.
Ahead of Tuesday’s talks, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned that “the situation is particularly dangerous and can escalate at any moment.”
“The responsibility for de-escalation is clearly with Russia, and it is for Moscow to withdraw its troops,” she said in a statement, adding that “we must use all opportunities for dialogue in order to reach a peaceful solution”.
Comments from Putin’s foreign and defence ministers on Monday had already offered some hope of a de-escalation.
During a carefully choreographed meeting Monday with Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: “there is always a chance” of reaching an agreement with the West over Ukraine.
He told Putin that exchanges with leaders in European capitals and Washington showed enough of an opening for progress on Russia’s goals to be worth pursuing.
Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu meanwhile told Putin that some Russian military drills launched in December were “ending” and more would end “in the near future”.
The Russian leader and his top aides have consistently argued that the current crisis is the result of the United States and western Europe ignoring Moscow’s legitimate security concerns.
Russia, which has repeatedly denied any plan to invade Ukraine, already controls the peninsula of Crimea that it seized from Ukraine in 2014 and supports separatist forces controlling parts of eastern Ukraine.
The Kremlin insists Nato must give assurances Ukraine will never be admitted as a member and roll back its presence in eastern European countries.
‘Crucial window’
Washington said Russia had strengthened its forces on the Ukrainian border over the weekend, but US officials insisted that “diplomacy continues to be viable”.
US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed in a call late Monday that “a crucial window for diplomacy” remained.
“The leaders emphasised that any further incursion into Ukraine would result in a protracted crisis for Russia, with far-reaching damage for both Russia and the world,” a Downing Street spokesman said.
Amid some claims from US officials that an invasion was being prepared for Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meanwhile declared it a “Unity Day”, urging Ukrainians to take the streets in peaceful demonstrations of solidarity.
Russia has more than 100,000 troops massed near Ukraine, which is not part of the Atlantic military alliance, and Washington — while keeping open the diplomatic channels that have so far failed to ease the crisis — has repeatedly said an invasion is imminent.
Moscow denies any such plans and has accused the West of “hysteria”.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, on the eve of a trip that takes him to Kyiv on Monday and Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, called for Russia to de-escalate and warned of sanctions if Moscow did invade. A German official said Berlin did not expect “concrete results but diplomacy was important.
In Washington, President Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said an invasion could begin “any day now”.
“We cannot perfectly predict the day, but we have now been saying for some time that we are in the window”, Sullivan told CNN.
US officials said they could not confirm reports that US intelligence indicated Russia planned to invade on Wednesday.
Sullivan said Washington would continue sharing what it learned with the world in order to deny Moscow the chance to stage a surprise “false flag” operation that could be a pretext for an attack.
It would also “defend every inch of Nato territory... and Russia we think fully understands that message,” Sullivan added in a separate CBS interview.
Biden spoke to his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday and they agreed on the importance of continuing to pursue diplomacy and deterrence in response to Russia’s military build-up, the White House said after the call.
Biden told Putin in a phone call on Saturday that the West would respond decisively to any invasion and such an attack would harm and isolate Moscow.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Twitter that Kyiv had so far received almost 1,500 tonnes of ammunition from allies delivered on 17 flights, including about 180 tonnes from the United States.
The capital Ottawa has been clogged with hundreds of big rigs for two weeks, while three border crossings have been shut down by truckers demanding an end to all COVID-19 health restrictions.
“We will take whatever steps are necessary to ensure the border is reopened,” Ford told a news conference, threatening steep fines of up to Can$100,000 ($80,000) and jail unless protesters end their “illegal occupation.”
“To the people of Ottawa under siege, I say we will ensure you’re able to resume life and business as soon as possible.”
The vital Ambassador Bridge connecting Windsor, Ontario and the US city of Detroit, is used daily by more than 40,000 commuters and tourists, along with trucks carrying $323 million worth of goods each day on average –about one-quarter of all Canada-US trade.
The days-long border obstructions have already have major impact, with several automakers forced to cut back production as a result, triggering fears it could impact Canada’s economic recovery from the pandemic.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is under mounting pressure to get the situation under control, with Washington calling on its northern neighbor to use federal powers to end the blockades.
Ford, who faces elections in June, has likewise been under fire for several days over his inaction to bring an end to the trucker-led disruptions.
The snowballing trucker movement has morphed over the past weeks into a broader protest against COVID-19 health restrictions and Trudeau’s government – and sparked solidarity rallies across the nation and abroad.
Ford premier acknowledged that Canadians have the “right to peacefully protest when they disagree with what our government is doing” to stem the pandemic, adding: “I know these frustrations have reached a boiling point for many Canadians.”
But he warned: “This is no longer a protest.”
Truckers have “taken a city of one million people hostage for the past two weeks” and have been “targeting our lifeline for food, fuel and goods across our borders" while “trying to force a political agenda through disruption, intimidation, and chaos.”
“We’re in a critical situation worldwide economically. the last thing we need is an anchor around our neck," he said.
Canada’s self-styled “Freedom Convoy” began last month in the country’s west -launched in anger at requirements that truckers either be vaccinated, or test and isolate, when crossing the US-Canada border.
The Ontario state of emergency came as thousands of protesters were headed toward Paris in similar convoys from across France, despite police warnings to back off.
The French protesters included opponents of Covid vaccination, but also people angry at fast-rising energy prices – in an echo of the “yellow vest” grievances that sparked widespread protests in 2018 and 2019.
Protesters have likewise set up a makeshift camp outside New Zealand’s parliament, scene of violent clashes earlier this week as police sought to clear anti-vaccine demonstrators.
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